How to record details of your hard-won brick spotting finds is a question that comes to most, though not all brick spotters. Having a record of what you spotted, where that was and when, can be quite interesting, for future reference and so on. There are many things you can record when brick spotting and what those are is really up to the individual brick spotter. On this page I want to share some of my thoughts on the matter and also what level of details I record myself.
There are many options on what you could record, when you have spotted a brickmark. Some spotters don’t bother recording anything being quite content to just spotted the brickmark and that’s it. At the next level you might carry a notebook for recording details of the brickmark, even as little as just the brickmark itself, although time, date and location is most often noted down as well, perhaps even the GPS reference, although you will require either a GPS receiver or a mobile phone with that facility.
Another option is to photograph the brickmark with a digital camera and this is perhaps the most widely used option in brick spotting. You don’t even have to buy a digital camera as many mobile phones also have reasonably good cameras on them. My own preference is for a digital camera which has many more features available to take a better photograph.
Then finally, often in addition to any or even all of the above, is to collect the actual brick itself, taking it home with you to create or add to you collection. Personally, I do not take bricks home, although I have considered doing so on many occasions when I’ve found a particularly good example.
I don’t collect bricks for various reasons. Firstly, they are heavy to carry and when you have found 20 to 30 bricks on a single field trip, it takes a lot of time and effort to get them home. Even getting the brick back to the car it not always that easy when you have to walk a couple of mile over rough terrain. I also think you should leave them for other brick spotters to find. Once a brick has been removed that’s it gone for ever.
In the above paragraphs I’ve looked at recording brickmark finds out in the field, but what of when you are back home? In my own case, I only take digital photographs which not only records an image of the brick and brickmark but also the date and time as well. My camera can also record a GPS reference for each images but I do not use this feature. Once home I download the images to the computer and rename them to match the location they were found. They are then sorted into folders based alphabetically on the brickmark. Any new brickmarks are then added to the website. A page is created and details of the location where the brick was found and the manufacturer is added.
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